A twist of fate had brought them all together.
As much as she worried about Sam and Lazlo, the girls were her first priority.
She needed to get back to Makao before he and his men found that upper trail. Though the truck would get her there faster, she didn’t dare risk it. Instead, she jogged the quarter mile up the hill, dismayed to discover he’d parked almost on top of the trail’s entrance.
Makao stood near his open driver’s door, the engine running, while all of his men seemed to be searching the road above them, the surface lit by the pickup’s headlights. She ducked behind a tree, watching through the branches as they tromped around, knowing that the only tracks they’d see up there were hers from when she dragged the sign to the back of the truck.
“Well?” Makao called out.
“This looks like where the truck stopped,” Jimi said, pointing toward the side of the road, perilously close to where the sign had once stood. “You can see the tire tracks where it pulled off.”
Makao joined them in front of the truck, the headlights casting a gigantic shadow of the four men up the hillside.
“Why would it pull off here?” one of the others asked.
“Why do you think?” Makao said. “The Fargo woman set us up. She let the girls out here somewhere, broke the sign off, and led us on a goose chase. The trail has to be there somewhere.”
Had he parked just a few feet back, he would have easily seen the brush covering its entrance.
Even better, they were blinded to anything behind the truck. She edged toward it, doing her best to stay in the grass on the side of the road, hoping to avoid leaving footprints.
When she reached the tailgate, she eyed the path just a few feet to her right. A single tree trunk was all that stood between her and the upper trail. She ducked behind it when Makao returned to the truck, reaching inside for a flashlight. He turned it on, shining it across the ground, then up onto the hillside, searching for evidence of their escape.
Remi pressed herself against the tree, edging around it to keep it between her and him. Two more steps and she’d be on the path—and in the open for a good distance, the brush too low to hide her even if she belly-crawled up to where the forest thickened. Watching the men, she blindly felt around with her foot, hitting a fist-sized rock. Scraping it toward her, she repeated her search until she had several gathered at her feet. Squatting, she picked them up and tossed one of the larger ones over the top of the truck to the other side of the road.
The stone landed in a bush, rattling the branches.
“Hear that?” one of the men said.
“What?” another asked.
“Quiet,” Makao ordered as Remi lobbed a second stone high over them. It landed on the other side, thudding, then rolling down the hill. “There,” he said.
“I hear it.” The men rushed to that side of the road, pointing their guns and flashlights into the brush. She threw one last stone and ran up the trail and across the open space as the beam of a flashlight swung across the road, hitting the trees in front of her.
She dove to the ground, then peered through the leaves, seeing Makao almost standing at the trail entrance.
“Something moved up there,” one of the men said, drawing his gun. Another aimed his flashlight into the shrubs, blinding her.
Crack!
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
The fool speaks, the wise man listens.
– ETHIOPIAN PROVERB –
A bush pig scrambled down the hill past Makao.
“Idiots,” he said, then looked at the scuffs in the dirt near the back of his truck, trying to decide if one of his men made them when they were jumping out or if they could’ve been caused by girls searching for a trail. He swept the beam of light across the trees and shrubs growing on the right side of the road, his attention catching on what looked like a waffled footprint in the dirt near a tuft of broken dried grass. None of his men had walked down that far, so the print wasn’t theirs. He moved closer and crouched down. Same waffle print he’d seen on the lower trail. Too small to be a man’s, too large to be a girl’s.
Remi Fargo, no doubt, returning to the scene of the crime.
He aimed his flashlight uphill, knowing if she went to the trouble to double back, the trail had to be here somewhere. Sure enough, he saw more signs of disturbed vegetation and partial footprints in the dirt.
Each had the same waffle pattern.
Jimi joined him. “Find something?”